Mastodawn

LadyButterfly she/her

So many successes

FiniteBanjo Jan 21

Listen, power to women, and Vera Rubin’s work was amazing and she deserves every praise.

But nobody has ever proven the existence of Dark Matter. What’s proven is that our current mathematical models do not accurately represent the universe due to the way things move and effects of gravity, under our current understanding, requiring a large amount of mass that we have not observed.

Does that make sense? It could be that our models or understandings are just wrong, or it could be that there is some magical unobservable matter, but we don’t know. We haven’t proven anything.

A theory from a famous book I just read (not gonna say the title, not to spoil): dark matter is the matter that has collapsed into a smaller spatial dimension (2 or 1)

What’s proven is that our current mathematical models do not accurately represent the universe due to the way things move and effects of gravity

This is actually the bit that Vera Rubin discovered. The summary of her discovery in the quote is the issue :)

Miles O'Brien Jan 21

That’s… What finitebanjo said?

[deleted]Jan 21

Nope.

FiniteBanjo Jan 21

Yes, it was.

Originally, banjos post read like the line about Vera Rubin was outright incorrect, rather than simply being a case of the OP in the image making a poor summary of her contributions.

It sounded like Banjo was challenging Vera’s relevance in the list, rather than clarifying what she actually did

FiniteBanjo Jan 22

I would not make praising her the opening statement of my comment if I were challenging her contributions.

Broadly, what you said was “Power to her, but what’s proven is that our current mathematical models do not accurately represent the universe”. The “but” in that statement is that issue, as it sounds like you’re challenging her findings with a correction, but your correction was just to summarise her initial findings

FiniteBanjo Jan 22

Her achievment is proving the current mathematical models do not represent the universe and explaining why, where many men before her utterly failed.

Her achievment is not proving the existence of dark matter.

The “but” is very warranted and I honestly feel like the “dark matter is real” zealots are the ones besmirching her name by misrepresenting her accomplishments.

What I’m getting at is that your “but” made it sound like you were challenging her findings, rather than images incorrect summary of her findings.

TheTechnician27 Jan 21

The reason I think this is important is because we keep throwing money at bigger and bigger dark matter detection chambers, and we keep operating on the possibly incorrect assumption of dark matter while we create new theories.

Okay, Sabine, whatever you say. I’m sure bubble chambers and TPCs (I assume since you’re targeting “chambers” that other experiments like DEAP are fine) for direct detection are a catastrophic money sink that you’re totally not exaggerating even a little.

Edit: Wait, are you specifically targeting the funding for the search for WIMPs? Since you’re just joining us from your 15-year coma, I’m afraid to inform you that problems have gotten much worse for science than bubble chamber and TPC costs.

FishFace Jan 21

How would you go about proving the existence of regular matter?

FiniteBanjo Jan 21

I think therefor I am, I guess.

FishFace Jan 21

How do you know you’re made of matter?

FiniteBanjo Jan 21

Matter describes what exists.

FishFace Jan 21

So, dark matter is matter?

FiniteBanjo Jan 21

Dark matter has never been proven to exist.

FishFace Jan 21

The only matter you’ve proven to exist is your own consciousness, so that’s not saying much.

Since you’ve defined matter to be everything that exists, you must believe that whatever is the explanation for dark matter is matter, since it exists.

FiniteBanjo Jan 21

There are no observations of dark matter and few to none theories on how and why it exists. The only indication that it might exist is that our math doesn’t accurately predict or simulate how celestial bodies are moving, there are other theoretical explanations such as a better understanding of gravity or a larger celestial mechanism just outside of the observable universe supplying an external force.

If you stipulate we must accept Dark Matter as the one true answer then you must also accept any hypothesis regardless of evidence, which is stupid.

TLDR: You’re stupid.

FishFace Jan 21

According to what you said, gravity is matter, since gravity exists.

FiniteBanjo Jan 21

The effects of gravity have been observed, the cause itself has not. Prevailing hypothesis is gravitational waves which are being experimented on as we speak.

FishFace Jan 21

Saying that gravitational waves (which were observed in 2015) are the “cause” of gravity is like saying light is the “cause” of electromagnetism.

Your characterisation of dark matter as “not having been observed” is one of degree and one of terminology. There is evidence that something causes stronger gravitational lensing than can be accounted for by otherwise-observed matter, but this gravitational lensing (alongside other things) is an observation. How then has this phenomenon “not been observed”?

FiniteBanjo Jan 22

Oh shit, they did detect them, and dude got a nobel prize for it. How did I miss that, lmao.

Nurse_Robot Jan 21

Jaicilgin: literally hasn’t done shit

Based on this evidence, I’d counter that he has ONLY done shit.

That’s his biological job

seerdomin1983 Jan 21

Blessed with glorious purpose.

FunkyCheese Jan 21

Just throwing it out there, that scientific discoveries can be done by married mothers as well

Also, if you’re not married with kid at 24 as a dude, you failed.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume ‘Jaicilgin’ failed.

FuglyDuck Jan 21

Man, I hope he failed.

Foreigner Jan 21

I hope he never stopped failing

Confused_Emus Jan 21

I’d guess someone with that mentality started making crotch spawn at 16 or 17, perpetuating a genetic line that will continue to be about as useful to society as an indoor kite. The Stupid breed like rabbits.

Marie Curie was, in fact, a married mother when she did the work that earned her two Nobel Prizes in separate fields.

notreallyhere Jan 21

OK but did they have kids?

This doesn’t even make sense from a (pretty stupid) “you have to have children” point of view, what is stopping women to have kids later in life, when they’ve got an education, know what they want in life, and are financially and mentally stable enough to raise them?

Of course I know the answer starts with “m” and ends with “isogyny”, but it’s a very stupid take even in its own framework

FuglyDuck Jan 21

Well.

You see. J-douche up there? He likes ‘em young and thinks every guy does, too.

AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor Jan 21

Ok, now listen to me. Please, PLEASE, never again say something like

it’s a very stupid take even in its own framework

You never know who’s reading this and I guarantee you that there is always someone ready to take that as a personal challenge.

Eskarina (she/her)Jan 21

Sometimes I do enjoy making conclusions from stupid and insane premises, can be a fun little thinking exercise.

I mean, I can always decide to argue with someone who seems to disagree but is willing to stick to the rules as argue in good faith. Who knows, maybe one or both of us can learn something. Likewise, I can always decide that someone is so far gone that there’s no point. But to categorically avoid any argument that sounds stupid is not helpful.

Those people are like that because a) they are genuinely bad people, b) they are fueling the fire on purpose, and c) nobody ever convinced them they are stupid.

To not let the a) and b) win, yes, we need to convince people that what they heard is wrong.

what is stopping women to have kids later in life

Menopause.

But anyway, it’s generally a good idea to have children earlier, because you’ll get to spend more time with them and you won’t be the weird old parent in the school. Also health reasons and whatnot.

As for misogyny, I think it’s mostly from one generation to the next and also more often women to women. Most guys that I know would rather postpone having children as long as possible for the same reasons that you’ve stated.

Menopause doesn’t hit before the 40s or so. Plenty of women have children in their 30s. At that point, they have had time to mature, get an education, and build stable circumstances to raise children. Yes, the consequences of the industrial revolution and so on, but those consequences also basically eradicated the child mortality we had before, for instance.

If someone knows they want a family early, good for them, but I don’t blame anyone wanting to experience life before passing it on.

No doubt. I’m glad I had my 20s to roam around before getting kids, but I’m even more happy to still be young enough that I can travel the world and participate in physical activities with my kids as well. Having kids doesn’t have to mean giving up on experiencing life. They’re part of it, and they’re the best people to share it with. In hindsight, I probably could have cut my party years short by five years without missing a thing. Having kids was the best thing in my life. It might not be for everybody.

I’m in the late 40s now, and I feel it’s too late to have more by now. I know people who do in that age. Divorced couples going for the late common child or DINKs who finally made enough money. It looks really tough for them. It’s temporarily hard work for a couple of years. It’s hard if you’re young and don’t have money, but it’s also hard when you’re old and less agile and physical on top.

ChaoticNeutralCzech Jan 21

McClintock did her Nobel-winning work in her 40s, and it went unappreciated for 30 years because nobody believed her. An inspiring story for sure, but not one of an elderly woman discovering new biology.

My female friend had a female doctor try to talk her out of a contraceptives prescription; that she was 28 and should be having babies…

It’s not a misogyny thing, per se, rather just people that define their lives by the templates supplied by societal stereotypes. Never take advice from a person that doesn’t think for themself.

Doing something permanent at 28 could be shortsighted and I would agree with the doctor in that case but surely a prescription is just temporary? I don’t see why the doctor would advice against it

Miles O'Brien Jan 21

Because the doctor is stuck in the mindset that women are baby factories and they should be that above whatever else they want to do in life.

“Boomer isn’t just an age group, it’s a state of mind.” -some rando on the internet

Steve Dice Jan 21

people that define their lives by the templates supplied by societal stereotypes

This is literally institutional misogyny.

It is many things. Institutional misogyny can be a cause for some.

Steve Dice Jan 23

Oh, for sure. I meant this specific example.

Women are able to perpetuate misogyny. Your comment seems like you think misogyny can only happen to a women from a man. Not sure of your actual intent, but it comes off that way.

per se “by or in itself or themselves; intrinsically.”

FuglyDuck Jan 21

To be fair, they did say “biological job”

So I’d go with Rosalind Franklin who was 30ish when she did the X-ray diffusion thing and found dna was molecular.

Or Barbara McClintock, 46, for her work on “jumping genes”.

;)

Marriage isn’t biological

I can explain nuclear fission and I’m only in my forty’s!

Daisy (she/her)Jan 21

Don’t forget Noether! She discovered one of the most fundamental theorems of the universe: (paraphrasing) there is a 1:1 relationship between a conservation law (eg momentum) and symmetry (eg spacetime). This has shaped a lot of modern physics and helped explain otherwise unexplainable phenomena!

Hadn’t heard of her before! The theorem sounds interesting, but the Wikipedia article is a bit dense - I got that “any system with symmetry will have conserved values”, but I got lost on the implications. Would you mind expanding on her theorem?

Daisy (she/her)Jan 21

Sure, the biggest implication is now we can look for symmetries in the universe and deduce a conservation law (with much difficulty by people way better at maths than me). This conservation law is not going to be broken by further refinements of our models, as it is inherent to the system. For example, you probably learnt about conservation of energy when learning Newtonian mechanics, but since this is a product of symmetry (in time iirc), then future refinements such as special or general relativity won’t break conservation of energy. The only way it could is if the symmetry is not fully accurate, like in quantum, where fluctuations in energy are possible, but very minor (providing phenomena such as the Casimir effect).

Most of the details are beyond me, and the maths certainly is, so please don’t take my interpretation of the literature as gospel!

So it lets us work out certain laws inherent in our universe? Wow, I did miss that implication…

NigelFrobisher Jan 21

No-one has any biological job. Live how you want.